SR-71.....

Got off a C-130 at U-Tapao. Crew Chief said "do you see that plane over there?" Answer: No you did not. Used to watch them on Radar. Climb to great heights on Height Finder Radar and kick it in and disappear in about two sweeps and then lost over China out to Okinawa. Thai Officers always asked "What was the track name?" They kept putting it on the board and Commander kept erasing it. Finaly he told them it was "Watermelon Flight" for their log. We only had F-4 and F-105 for Bubble Watch, would like to have one of these come through the Radar Towers. "US still denies flights over China"
 
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Back in the 80's I heard an interesting exchange on HF Air Traffic oceanic control late one night. What normally happens is aircraft going trans-atlantic handoff to Gander control, then at some point cross into Shanwick or Reykjavik space, and then out of oceanic control to one of the mainland control areas (Heathrow, NYC, Frankfurt, etc). Or vice versa. It's a long way, so it's normally hours before that handoff occurs.

I had heard "Gander Center, mumblemumble21" and do his spiel (Route, etc). But when he checked in a bit later with a position report of 30W and requested handoff to XYZ control, the Gander ATC indicated that must be an error, etc, implying the position could not be right. (IE: it was too soon. Remember, no radar over the Atlantic for much of the transit)

Then the pilot came back with: "Look again at my flight info, Mach and Flight Level... BLACKBIRD-21 requesting clearance to XYZ Main" (Or something like that)

"Roger BLACKBIRD-21, Cleared to XYZ, have a good flight. Gander out"

Then I heard other pilots laugh without ID'ing. (Late at night trans-atlantic they would get a bit lax at times, sequential tones, static crashes, and Sideband audio can get boring)

Don't remember all the details. Don't know why a mil flight was using the oceanic ATC's. Have to assume it was non-classified transit, Maybe going to an airshow, etc. They have the option to send their flight info via datalink even then, so most details were not transmitted in the traffic.

But it was transatlantic transit in a fraction of the time normal heavy civvy/mil flights would take. Only possible answer was that it was indeed a SR-71!

This was a case where I wished I had been recording the traffic as it was a hoot!
 
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